Can 'The Quad' Work Together to Contain Chinese Aggression?

Joseph Hammond 
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A once in a decade series of events in the Asia-Pacific region have conspired to bring about closer ties between America’s most important allies in the Asia-Pacific. Regardless of who wins the election in November, the U.S. has an opportunity to expand this emerging alliance to include other areas of potential cooperation beyond nominal defense ties.

Back in 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sought to bring together his country, the United States, Australia, and India with a security arrangement that serve as a bulwark against Chinese expansion in the Indo-Pacific. From the U.S. perspective, key supporters included Vice President Dick Cheney and Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain. These efforts fizzled in 2008, but in 2017 the the Trump administration began—quietly and with little fanfare—to reknot the undone defense ties among the nations. The grouping known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue was relaunched that year. Analysts in all four countries often refer to it simply as “the Quad.”

China’s increasingly assertive behavior in territorial disputes is causing concern across the Indo-Pacific from Ladakh to Japan’s Senkaku Islands. The governments in all four countries have also taken notice of China’s behavior in the South China Sea where it has militarized a series of artificial islands along one of the world’s busiest maritime transit corridors. Internally, China’s behavior toward Hong Kong or minority groups like the Uighurs is just as worrying.

Indo-Pacific Pivot in India’s Geostrategy

Krupa Susan Varghese

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The geopolitical corridor of the Indo-Pacific was the platform of various civilizational exchanges and where the Portuguese mercantile interest and naval power was projected. The naval power assertion was evident from their precise navigation capabilities and their naval bases in East Africa, Southern Asia and Southeast Asia. Simultaneously, the region provided opportunities for the Dutch, French and British mercantile interest. The term ‘Indo-Pacific’ has been under construction for a decade or more, and plays a significant role in the geostrategies of countries like India, Australia, Japan (along with some Southeast Asian countries), United States and France. Many scholars have debated the transition from the Asia-Pacific to ‘Indo-Pacific’ due to the importance of the Indian Ocean as well as due to India’s role. Also, the two important water bodies of the Indian and Pacific Oceans are assumed to be increasingly in confluence. The region is currently the abode of the great power projection where the US exerts its naval power through overstretching and rebalancing; China attempts to assert its power in the South China Sea; India projects its naval power and is also assuming the role of ‘Net Security Provider’; Russia has been extending its interest in the South Asia, Southeast Asia and West Asia; French interest is to promote French diplomacy and also to establish partnership with the regional countries whereas Australia tries to create balance and adapt to the ongoing competitions in the Indo Pacific between the US and China.

Threat Spectrum

The globalised network and the security vulnerabilities in the region creates a wide range of threat perceptions to India and the other regional players. The complex nature of the Indo-Pacific could be defined under two types of threats: Traditional and Non-traditional threat. The growing naval competition and territorialism between countries, failed states, the introduction of weapons of mass destruction and its proliferation have defined the traditional ambit of threats. The non-traditional ambit looks into the maritime terrorism, human and narcotics trafficking, piracy, small arms and light weapons trafficking, climate change and depletion of ocean resources. The non-traditional threats require a collective maritime cooperation among the Indo-Pacific countries to mitigate the challenges and such initiatives were held through MILAN (a step to provide a platform for interaction among the regional naval countries), QUAD, Indian Ocean Naval Symposium and Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) which focus on securing sea lanes of communication and safeguarding the trade routes.

Gilded aspirations

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India’s socio-economic realities have evolved significantly over the past four decades, particularly as far as attitudes to wealth accumulation are concerned. Gold is today no longer negatively associated with crooked businessmen, but rather positively with the consumerist aspirations of middle-class India. It is used to project enhanced family status at events such as the ‘great Indian wedding’, and is perceived as a high-return investment and a hedge against inflation.

Demand for gold has consistently risen 14% annually since 2001, with prices altogether increasing eight-fold. The Indian love affair with gold continues even as the economy strains under the weight of gold imports that degrade the fiscal balance. Gold is metaphorically to many Indians what opium was to the Chinese in the 19th century: an addictive escape from institutional decay and social stagnation. But hoarding gold pits the individual and their family against the government and its need to keep liquidity flowing in order to grow the economy.

This report examines three questions:

1. Why did an illicit economy around gold imports emerge in India?

2. What are the methods and routes used by smugglers?

3. Why has the illicit economy proved resilient to countermeasures by the government?

Taiwan and the United States — much thunder, little rain

Douglas Paal, Carnegie Endowment
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Since April, the administration of US President Donald Trump has been ratcheting up its rhetoric and actions regarding China. This strategy is intended to deflect blame for its mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic at home. It is having the side effect of appearing to dismantle the policy of ‘engagement’ with China of the previous seven US administrations and the way they treated Taiwan.

Trump sent Alex Azar, his Secretary of Health and Human Services, to visit Taiwan earlier this August. Azar is the first senior-level official of the Trump administration to do so, and the first since 2014 when the then head of the Environmental Protection Agency visited the island on behalf of then president Barack Obama.

Given the context of deteriorating US ties with China, rising anti-Chinese rhetoric and the sensitivity of the Taiwan issue to Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a ‘core interest’, the visit seems to come as close to crossing one of China’s ‘red lines’ as possible.

Attention to Taiwan at this level is not a hallmark of the Trump administration. Trump first alarmed China when, as president-elect in November 2016, he accepted a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. But buyer’s remorse set in on both the Trump and Tsai camps shortly after. The Trump administration quickly retreated to the behaviour and formulas of previous US governments on dealing with Taiwan.

The Current Situation in Pakistan

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Pakistan continues to face multiple sources of internal and external conflict. While incidences of domestic terrorism have reduced, in part due to measures taken by the Pakistani state, extremism and intolerance of diversity has grown.

There is some recognition by the state that instead of merely kinetic responses holistic counterterrorism policies are needed to counteract this trend. The growing extremism has been fueled by a narrow vision of Pakistan’s national identity, threatening the country’s prospect for social cohesion and stability. The inability of state institutions to reliably provide peaceful ways to resolve grievances has encouraged groups to seek violence as a legitimate alternative.

While peaceful political transitions occurred in both 2013 and 2018, the country is still facing mounting debt crisis and a perennial trade imbalance on the economic front. Furthermore, Pakistan’s high-profile disputes with neighboring India and Afghanistan have periodically resulted in violence and continue to pose a threat to regional and international security.

USIP’S Work

To Counter China Online, Regulate Big Tech

Coby Goldberg 

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The heads of Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook fended off tough questions from lawmakers last month at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee. To help allay concerns about monopolistic business practices, each CEO sought to portray his company as representing American values and serving American interests. They all did so in part by pointing to a threat supposedly bigger than their own companies: China.

“If you look at where the top technology companies come from, a decade ago the vast majority were American. Today, almost half are Chinese,” Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg said in his opening remarks. “There’s no guarantee our values will win out.” Limiting Facebook’s power, he implied, would only play into Beijing’s hands. Zuckerberg and the other Big Tech executives returned to the specter of Chinese technological dominance more than 30 times over the course of the afternoon, according to a New York Times tally. .

China Locks Down Xinjiang to Fight Covid-19, Angering Residents

By Javier C. Hernández
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First came the notices that Chinese officials had declared a “wartime” state. Then the authorities started going door to door, sealing off apartments and warning residents to stay inside.

The Chinese government in recent weeks has imposed a sweeping lockdown across the Xinjiang region in western China, penning in millions of people as part of what officials describe as an effort to fight a resurgence of the coronavirus.

But with the outbreak in Xinjiang seemingly under control and the restrictions still in place more than a month after the outbreak there began, many residents are lashing out and accusing the government of acting too harshly.

“There are no cases here,” Daisy Luo, 26, a fruit seller who lives in northern Xinjiang, said in an interview. “The controls are too strict.”

Why there won’t be a US-China war

By DAVID P. GOLDMAN
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In 1976, world heavyweight champion Mohammed Ali fought an exhibition bout in Tokyo with karate master Antonio Inoki. Inoki spent most of the match on his back kicking at Ali’s shins crab-fashion.

“Ali was only able to land two jabs while Inoki’s kicks caused two blood clots and an infection that almost resulted in Ali’s leg being amputated,” Wikipedia reports. “The match was not scripted and ultimately declared a draw.”

Archival footage can be viewed here showing Ali hoisting himself on the ropes to avoid Inoki’s crab kicks.

That’s why there won’t be a shooting war between the US and China. China has spent massively on anti-access/area denial weapons – A2/AD for short – that make war impractical.

As I explain in my book You Will Be Assimilated: China’s Plan to Sino-Form the World, China’s defense posture is founded on the same idea as Inoki’s defense against Ali: Beijing wants to make it impossible for the US to get close enough to use its superior forces. The popular “Thucydides Trap” argument that the US will go to war to stop the rise of China is, on close inspection, Thucydides claptrap.

China and New Start: Reading the Strategic Situation

By Adam Cabot
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The expiration of the New START Treaty is looming. This arms treaty limits the United States and Russia to 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) and strategic bombers. It’s one of a long list of arms treaties designed to prevent an arms race and without renewal, it will expire in February 2021. The sticking point to renewal is that the Trump administration wants China to also be subject to the Treaty. China has so far refused to enter into these negotiations. To understand China's position, let’s examine what influences may impact their strategic nuclear considerations.

The most obvious point to address is the numerical disparity of China’s nuclear force structure compared to the U.S. and Russia. As argued by the highly respected nuclear strategist, Dr. Matthew Kroenig, with his 'Superiority-Brinkmanship Synthesis Theory,' nuclear superiority provides states with geopolitical advantages. Kroenig mounts a solid argument that a robust nuclear force increases a state’s resolve in high-stakes crises, providing it with coercive bargaining leverage and enhancing nuclear deterrence. China has an estimated 320 nuclear warheads, a fraction of the thousands in the U.S. and Russian inventory. In addition to this numerical discrepancy, it’s worth noting that many of the Chinese ballistic missiles are in the INF range, between 500 km to 5,500 km, and are unable to strike the Continental United States. This puts China at a significant disadvantage when up against the U.S. and Russia and may partly explain their reluctance to imposing limits on their force structure.

Where does Biden stand on China and Taiwan?

BY JOSEPH BOSCO

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With the 2020 Democratic Convention in the books, editorialists and foreign policy experts are speculating on where the party’s standard-bearer, Joe Biden, stands on the most critical and pressing national security issue of our time — America’s relationship with Communist China — and on Taiwan, the most dangerous flashpoint in U.S.-China relations. 

The fact that Biden’s position remains a matter of conjecture at this point in his 50-year government career, including as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as vice president, is concerning. He has made a number of inconsistent, sometimes incoherent, statements about China. President Trump is guilty as well of uttering or tweeting confusing or erroneous things on these subjects, either publicly or as reported by former aides.

But Trump also heads an administration whose actions and words have defined a pretty clear policy of active resistance to China’s worst depredations: on trade, economic and intellectual property issues; on maritime and airspace aggression, seizure of national resources, and environmental destruction in the South and East China Seas; on Hong Kong, where the people’s limited democratic rights are being extinguished; on the destruction of the human rights of Uighurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong, Christians and dissidents; and on the expanding Chinese threat to Taiwan.

Joint Subcommittee Briefing on "China’s Oppression of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang"

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Washington D.C. (Aug. 14, 2020)—On Monday, August 17, 2020, at 11:00 a.m., Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on National Security, and Rep. Ami Bera, M.D., Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Nonproliferation will hold a joint briefing on “China’s Oppression of Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang.” 

Since at least late 2016, China has detained between one and three million Uyghurs in re-education camps, where they are “forced to learn Mandarin, renounce ‘extremist’ thoughts and undergo daily indoctrination in Chinese Communist Party propaganda,” in violation of China’s constitution and international labor and human rights laws.

China’s repressive tactics are designed to subjugate and assimilate the Uyghur population, and some experts have argued that China is committing “demographic genocide.” In June 2020, reports emerged that China was carrying out a forced birth control campaign in Xinjiang that resulted in birth rates decreasing “more than 60% from 2015 to 2018.”

The briefing will examine these human rights abuses and steps the Trump Administration should take alongside the international community, including global businesses and multilateral instructions, to hold China accountable.

Chinese-Made Drones: A Direct Threat Whose Use Should Be Curtailed

John Venable and Lora Ries

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The vast majority of commercial drones used in the U.S. are manufactured in China, and their operating systems are impressive and worrisome. The technology is advancing rapidly, and the capabilities currently found in large drones is now being miniaturized and will likely migrate to smaller drones in the near term, which will significantly broaden the threat. However, the understanding of the risk and/or the willingness for state and local agencies to thwart those drones from collecting sensitive data is limited—at best. The United States government needs to address and stop the collection and transfer of data by drones to any foreign-based corporation before this incredible capability is turned against us.

Drone use in the U.S. is increasing rapidly, but this raises substantial privacy and security concerns, especially concerns about data falling into the wrong hands.

Chinese drones dominate the U.S. market—despite minimal data protections, data transfer to Chinese firms, and mandatory data-sharing with the Chinese Government.

The U.S. must stop unauthorized data collection and transfer to foreign-based corporations or governments before it is used to threaten U.S. citizens or interests.

China, Open-Source Information, and Transparency

Dean Cheng
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The U.S. government’s “Open Source Center,” formerly the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, has largely disappeared from the public discourse—in part because all of its information can now only be accessed on U.S. government-approved computers. This has meant that there is no real “single source” of good, open-source information about China. It also highlights the need for an “air traffic controller,” directing researchers to the best sources for various types of information and providing its own analyses along the way. Ideally, such a “traffic cop” would both bring to light less well-known institutions and centers of excellence or ones less known to Washington policymakers, while also signaling a more bipartisan/non-partisan approach.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

As the coronavirus pandemic has underscored, America and her partners need to better understand the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party.

The U.S. government’s former role in translating Chinese documents has evaporated, leaving no single, generally available body of reliable, open-source literature.

Given the growing focus on China, policymakers and thought leaders should increase mutual information-sharing and research across multiple lanes and areas.

Download Report

Exclusive: Israeli Deal with Saudis, Other Gulf States, Is an 'Inevitability,' Says Kushner

BY BILL POWELL 

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With a historic agreement normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates now in its pocket, the Donald Trump administration believes further progress toward peace in the Middle East is coming. In an exclusive interview with Newsweek, Jared Kushner, Trump's special adviser and a key broker of the deal between Israel and the UAE (as well as the president's son-in-law), says he believes similar agreements between Israel and other Gulf states—and even Saudi Arabia, the keeper of Islam's two holiest cities—"are an inevitability. The question is the time frame."

"A lot of the countries are watching this very closely," Kushner says. "They are going to see how it is responded to. The younger generation [in the region] is very excited about it. Some members of the older generation still have nostalgia for a different time, and don't want to take any risks. But the reality is, most of these countries want to advance their economies, and they realize that by holding themselves back they are playing into Iran's hands and Iran's desire for a fractured and chaotic Middle East."

All Great-Power Politics Is Local

BY STEPHEN M. WALT 
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Those of us who write about foreign policy and international affairs spend most of our time thinking about what states and other global actors are doing with and to each other. We debate what different interests are, criticize the strategies and priorities (or lack of each) that leaders adopt, and offer advice on what goals should be sought and how they could be achieved more effectively.

The implicit assumption behind these efforts (and the rationale for a magazine like Foreign Policy) is that these decisions matter. A lot. People like me are (mostly) convinced that if you get foreign policy right, lots of good things will come your way. Get it wrong and you’re likely to find yourself in a heap of trouble.

I’m no exception to this general tendency. If you go back and read all the columns I’ve written here over the past decade or more, or the various books and articles I’ve published since I began my career, you will find that they are mostly focused on diagnosing why states are acting toward others in different ways, determining if their policies are working or not, and exploring how they might do better. And with occasional exceptions, this focus is for most people who work in this field.

US Army tests network cyber tools under real-world conditions

Mark Pomerleau

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is testing whether technologies developed in a lab to defend the tactical network and ensure safe data transfer can survive real-world conditions.

These tools differ from traditional cyber defense methods given the makeup of the Army’s tactical network. Unlike a static enterprise network where servers sit in air-conditioned buildings and have near-constant connectivity, the tactical network must be mobile and distributed. This would complement the Army’s goal that formations be able to more frequently change locations, sometimes more than once an hour, in response to new tracking techniques from adversaries.

Thus, the tactical network must involve easy assembly and disassembly. It also won’t have the same access to bandwidth, connectivity and cloud capabilities of enterprise networks.

The tools being tested at Network Modernization Experiment, or NetModX, include technology that can autonomously detecting anomalies on a network, aid network defenders, and assure the viability of information and data passed from one user to another.

Falling Trade, Rising Imbalances...

by Brad W. Setser

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On an annualized basis, China’s trade surplus in July was around $700 billion. That’s big.

In a typical year, July is one of those months where seasonality neither increases nor reduces China’s surplus in a predictable way (the seasonal lows are in early q1, the peak is in q4). China’s goods surplus in July was up something like $20b y/y (over $200b at an annualized rate), which if sustained implies a significant rise in China's trade and current account surplus.*

Reviving the Liberal World Order: An American Challenge

By Michael Miklaucic

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Is the liberal world order really dead? A deluge of lamentation among the global elite about its demise and our descent into authoritarianism and autocratic populism is alarming. True, there has been a noticeable erosion at the base of the liberal world order over the past two decades. A persistent slide in the global democracy index with numerous countries slipping into autocracy has accompanied a growing trend of authoritarian populism in the established democracies themselves. The global free trade regime has been threatened, and the notion of liberalism itself attacked.

But is the liberal world order’s end a foregone conclusion? We should not dismiss its economic dynamism, its diverse and innovative cultures, its creative and adaptable populations, and the unprecedented network of alliances and partnerships it has forged among like-minded countries. The future of the liberal world order depends on what happens in the next few years: especially in the United States.

The ideas that defined and shaped the liberal world order originated in the Enlightenment of 17th and 18th century Europe, but many embedded as global norms in the aftermath of World War II. They are rooted in the principles of individual liberty, human rights, justice, and an equitable social contract between the governors and the governed. As these ideas spread and took hold around the world, they catapulted humanity into unprecedented improvements in the quality of life, as measured by longevity, literacy, and prosperity, the widely accepted basic elements of human well-being. The record of liberalism is not unsullied, having bred imperialism, embraced slavery, and fueled catastrophic wars. Yet no period in human history has come close to this kind of accelerated improvement in the standard of living.

Duel Britannia: The myth of Britain’s culture war

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Can I make a confession? I’m not really interested in the Last Night of the Proms. I don’t think I’ve ever watched it. I don’t really know the words to 'Rule Britannia'. Or the other one.

Does that mean I hate Britain and all it stands for? Does it mean I am callously indifferent to Britain’s shameful history of imperialism and oppression?

Of course not. It means I’m like the overwhelming majority of people in this country — of all ages, races, backgrounds — who don’t get very excited about this stuff. We are the civilians in the culture wars, and we are many.

Yes, I know a lot of people who comment under articles like this are passionately insistent that these things matter, to them and everyone they know. Likewise Twitter. But — brace yourself for this — neither comments on media articles nor social media drivel are representative of the country as a whole.

How many people are actually demanding change to the Proms? Most people don’t care that much

And yes, I’m sure polls are being prepared even now that will show majorities in favour of the Proms et al. But those polls will show preference, not salience: cultural spats are very low on the priority list for most people.

The Role of Russian Private Military Contractors in Africa

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It is no secret that Moscow is increasingly utilizing so-called “private military contractors” (PMCs) to pursue foreign policy objectives across the globe, especially in the Middle East and Africa. What has received less attention is that Moscow’s deployment of PMCs follows a pattern: The Kremlin is exploiting a loophole in international law by securing agreements that allow contractors to provide local assistance. The problem is, however, Russian PMCs are not simply contractors.

This pattern of Russian behavior presents a new challenge that Western policymakers should address, as it speaks to broader Russian influence in Africa in the context of great power competition. This challenge is about Moscow’s erosion of broader behavioral norms.

A similar scenario has played out in Libya, Sudan, Central African Republic (CAR), and Madagascar. First, these governments hold official senior discussions with Moscow and agree on simplified post-visits. The country then provides Russia with port or airfield access. Next, the two agree that Moscow will provide some form of local assistance, creating a legitimate reason for “private contractors” to come to a county, for example, to help with natural resource extraction or provide security. This is the loophole—technically there is nothing prohibiting Moscow from making these arrangements. The next logical step is a Russian navy or air force visit, which further solidifies the official Russian presence.

RUSSIAN ACTIVE MEASURE;S CAMPAIGNS AND INTERFERENCE IN THE 2016 U.S. ELECTION

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The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence undertook a study of these events, consistent with its congressional mandate to oversee and conduct oversight of the intelligence activities and programs of the United States Government, to include the effectiveness of the Intelligence Community's counterintelligence function. In addition to the work of the professional staff of the Committee, the Committee's findings drew from the input of cybersecurity professionals, social media companies, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and researchers and experts in social network analysis, political content, disinformation, hate speech, algorithms, and automation, working under the auspices of the Committee's Technical Advisory Group (TAG). 3 The efforts of these TAG researchers led to I the release of two public reports on the IRA's information warfare campaign, based on data provided to the Committee by the social media companies. 

These reports provided the 1 (U) For purposes of this Volume, "information warfare" refers to Russia's strategy for the use and management of information to pursue a competitive advantage. See Congressional Research Service, Defense Primer: Information Operations, December 18, 2018. 2 3 (U) The TAG is an external group of experts the Committee consults for substantive technical advice on topics of importance to Committee activities and oversight. In this case, the Committee requested the assistance of two independent working groups, each with the technical capabilities and expertise required to analyze the data. The two working groups were led by three TAG members, with John Kelly, the founder and CEO of the social media analytics firm Graphika, and Phil Howard, an expert academic researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute, leading . one working group, and Renee DiResta, the Director of Research at New Knowledge, a cybersecurity company dedicated to protecting the public sphere from disinformation attacks, leading the other. 

Cyber Command takes the fight abroad

By Lauren C. Williams
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Cyber Command launched in 2010 with a mission of defending Defense Department networks, but it has evolved into a more proactive organization, its top leaders say.

Gen. Paul Nakasone, CyberCom chief and director of the National Security Agency, outlined its "persistent engagement" and "defend forward" strategies that involves meeting adversaries in cyberspace "on a recurring basis" in an Aug. 25 Foreign Affairs article titled How to Compete in Cyberspace.

"We learned that defending our military networks requires executing operations outside our military networks. The threat evolved, and we evolved to meet it," Nakasone and senior adviser Michael Sulmeyer wrote.

One result of persistent engagement is the ability to collect and disclose information, including potentially destructive malware deployed by nation-state actors, to other government and the private sector to enable patching and other defense.

Nakasone and Sulmeyer are confident that such continuous engagement with cyber adversaries ballooning "from hacking to all-out war" because "inaction poses its own risks."

How to Compete in Cyberspace

By Paul M. Nakasone and Michael Sulmeyer
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In early October 2019, personnel from U.S. Cyber Command landed in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, at the invitation of the country’s government. Montenegro has faced increased harassment from Russia since joining NATO in 2017, and the Cyber Command team was there to investigate signs that hackers had penetrated the Montenegrin government’s networks. Working side by side with Montenegrin partners, the team saw an opportunity to improve American cyber defenses ahead of the 2020 election.

After a “hunt forward” mission has been completed, Cyber Command works with other parts of the U.S. government to disclose its findings. The findings enable the U.S. government to defend critical networks more effectively and allow large antivirus companies to update their products to better protect their users. The net effect of the many hunt forward missions that Cyber Command has conducted in recent years has been the mass inoculation of millions of systems, which has reduced the future effectiveness of the exposed malware and our adversaries. 

Algorithmic Warfare: Army Consolidating Cyber Operations Forces

By Yasmin Tadjdeh
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After years of planning, the Army has consolidated its various cyber elements and coalesced them at Fort Gordon, Georgia. The move is creating synergies as the nation faces increased competition in the digital realm, officials said. 

The state-of-the-art facility first broke ground in late 2016 and was unveiled in July. 

“Our industry partners have done a terrific job outfitting our new headquarters at Fort Gordon and bringing in the latest, most technically advanced versions of all of our mission systems,” said Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, commanding general of Army Cyber Command, during AFCEA’s Army Signal Conference. “This will ensure … [we are] able to project cyber combat power from Fort Gordon for years to come.”

Various elements of Army Cyber Command — which was stood up in October 2010 — had previously been headquartered throughout the Washington, D.C. region including Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and Fort Meade, Maryland. 

EMP Weapons: How to Beat the U.S. Military in a War?

by David T. Pyne
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This past year, the United States has witnessed a greatly increased threat from North Korea. U.S. intelligence has now confirmed that North Korea not only possesses up to sixty nuclear warheads, but it has developed the miniaturization technology required to mount them atop a number of different types of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which it has tested over the past year.

Dr. Peter Pry, who served as chief of staff to the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, which Congress unwisely chose to disband late last year, currently serves as Executive Director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security. He told Congress that there is the possibility that Pyongyang has deployed two “super EMP” satellites in low-earth orbit over the continental United States which, if detonated over the country without warning, could kill up to 290 million Americans within a year. Pry also estimates that Russia currently possesses at least three times more nuclear weapons than the United States. In addition, communist China recently admitted having built three thousand miles worth of underground tunnels where it may be concealing hundreds of mobile ICBMs with 1,600–1,800 nuclear warheads, according to Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, a former commander of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces. That number is considerably more than the number that the United States currently has deployed.